Pakistan’s annual inflation, as measured by the weekly Sensitive Price Indicator, rose to 11.85% in the week ended October 22, even as the country’s two biggest multilateral lenders praised its economic stabilisation and urged it to move on to growth. The numbers capture a gap that is becoming hard to ignore: macroeconomic indicators are improving,...
An International Monetary Fund mission has begun a fresh round of review talks with Pakistani authorities in Islamabad, opening a roughly two-week assessment of the country’s progress under its $7 billion Extended Fund Facility and $1.4 billion Resilience and Sustainability Facility, even as officials head into the negotiations carrying a familiar mix of missed targets...
The State Bank of Pakistan’s Monetary Policy Committee has trimmed the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 9 percent, extending an easing cycle that has now brought borrowing costs down from the 22 percent peak reached during the height of the country’s inflation crisis. The central bank cited a sustained decline in headline...